Posted 6 years ago on Nov. 19, 2011, 6:10 p.m. EST by bluefields
(3)
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The media's main critique of our movement is its lack of a unified cause or demand. While I think the simple message of dissatisfaction is poignant, I also think there's a way to turn all of it -- the collapsing economy, the unemployment crisis, the lack of accountability of big business -- into a single, productive sound bite.

"No more outsourcing U.S. jobs."

It targets one of the largest problems we're facing: United States corporations are gutting our economy by sending thousands of jobs overseas, where they can pay their employees less than a living wage. Not only does this result in fewer jobs in the United States, that money is never fed back into the U.S. economy.

This problem can be solved. Congress needs make this practice illegal or tax it to the point that it's no longer profitable for the companies in question. It's an inexcusable form of corporate greed that our government has the power to stop. We're not asking them to create new jobs; we're demanding that they return our jobs to us.

I encourage you to take this idea and run with it. Start up the chant at your local Occupy site. Put it on signs and pass them out. Explain it to the journalists who are all too eager to dismiss us as bored children with no clear objective or goals. This is where it all overlaps. This is a fight we can win.

47 Comments

Yeah, that is a major part of the problem. It would just have to be done in a way, by someone with a strong understanding of economics, so it would help the problem but not seriously mess up various economies.

I remember a while ago I worked at a law office and they announced that they were outsourcing some jobs. They were saying that we were going to be competing in regards to production with the outsourced branch... and that the outsourced branch was going to be working 6 days a week, 8 hours a day.....It sucks for those whom these jobs are going to, as they are working crappy hours for crappy pay, and it sucks for us in the US as these jobs are dissapearing. Perhaps if US companies weren't setting up in other countries those countries could perhaps get some projects together themselves and use their resources for something that would truly benefit them. It is hard to say though, the impact it would have.

I agree that the tax treatment of corporations incorporated here in America employing overseas workers needs to be changed. Perhaps companies should be given tax credits when hiring U.S. citizens, X dollars worth of credits per new, full time citizen hired.
I think if you outright tax corporations for hiring overseas workers they may simply pull up stakes and go elsewhere.

perhaps they should be forced to pay extra tax for the outsource employee. take my word.. taking thier money is a lot more effective than giving them money. there should be a outsource employee tax equal to the rate of the labor cost in america. that would force them to keep jobs here in order to be more 'cost effective'

Another loophole to close. If they had to pay the same rate elsewhere as they do here it would no doubt make a big difference. So they have stuff made by out sourcing - what if the workers there were paid what our workers get- what if that was required to operate in someone else-es home as they are required to do here? What if the facility being used for outsource had to run to the same standards as in this country?

Corporations are ruining outsource lives ( foreigners ) and environments because they are allowed to, they fuck-up someone Else's environment in a close up and personal way because they are allowed to.

Fuck the environmental laws and requirements in the USA I'LL fuck-up somewhere else where they will let me.

Potentially, although they have incentive to keep their companies here in America due to all the other ludicrous tax cuts and loopholes they can exploit. It's unlikely that taxing them for outsourcing jobs would offset that profit margin enough to make them completely uproot.

Eliminating outsourcing (and I suppose also imported manufactured
goods) would of course be an impossible task unless it were engineered incremently and very gradually. Otherwise (if it were to be implemented too rapidly), there would be few goods available for sale and purchase. Thereby, elimination of most of the existing jobs for distribution, marketing and delivery would occur (because there would be very little to sell for quite a while).

And assuming that outsourcing could be eliminated gradually, the job sector which would be primarily stimulated would be robotics (more automation) so that those tasks being brought back could be made obsolete. Plus, the automation surge would extend to jobs not yet outsourced as well as those slated to come back eventually.

But whether this robotic revolution is stimulated by legislation to eliminate outsourcing or just ongoing competitive pressures, elimination of jobs by advancing technology is inevitable. Even jobs such as customer service and tech support are literally only a few years away from being totally automated with computerized voices indistinguishable from humans. Currently, most outsourced customer support is conducted via sophisticated scripting and sequence trees which enable people in distant countries who have never seen the product to do troubleshooting effectively. It is only a few steps away from being handled entirely by computer. IBM's demo on the Jeopardy quiz show and their released information about their intelligent (call it artificial intelligence, if you wish) voice recognition and information response with voice synthesized speech, is currently moving vast sums of investment capital into IBM. They are even field testing medical diagnostics which will eliminate many health care positions. Like we have seen our gasoline pump automated (people formerly did that for us) we will see virtually every aspect of our lives automated and roboticized.

So the answer is not jobs... because we won't need jobs eventually.

The answer is to establish a welfare state where people are provided an adequate standard of living without working and they can pursue other interests such as art, education, and volunteering, not just to aid the infirm, but to innovate and manage (the way wikipedia and open source software have been created and maintained) or just to live in leisure (as much of the wealthy do now).

Jobs would still exist for additional income, necessary because such a system will still need facilitators and managers (anyplace where volunteers aren't forthcoming).

Yes, it's a utopian society, but with the explosion of technology it is inevitable.

the past 10 years outsourcing it jobs to india has created a massive divide of wealth between rich and poor..it has caused govt to relax the rules to setup engineering colleges and hence even poultry farms are modified as engineering colleges in india..which mass produces half baked engineers who take the cheap labour in call centers and there is no quality education.. IT firms which are rightfully the jobs of you americans..please stop outsourcing and save both america and india.

The next step is total automation of most jobs. In the future you would be competing against a machine instead of a person. I am not a luddite. The machines might make thins cheaper (less people to pay). However when no one have jobs there would be no one to buy the products (less people get paid). Sometimes employee are customers.

The H-1B visa has allowed for firms to send people over to the US to learn the skills and then to return to places like India so the jobs get outsourced there. It is why Bill Gates is a douche. He is a member of NASSCOM and in 2008 he got his own special audience in front of House Science Committee and said that he would move his business overseas because there was a shortage of tech. Although, two studies had been done that said otherwise. Further, he had already been shipping jobs overseas.

Geez, the 99% have been voting for outsourcing with their wallets for over 30 yrs. We have all shopped for price never looking at the MADE IN label. Seems the chickens have come home to roost. Increase minumum wage and further reduce demand for MADE IN THE USA. I have been watching this phenomenom for over 30 yrs as a victim of outsourcing from a Fortune 100 company, watching as we closed US plants and first relocated in Mexico and later moved to the Far East chasing the cheap labor countries.

You make the statement "protectionism doesn't work." What facts can you provide to back that up? What can you tell me about the history of tariffs in the US during the period of time that it became the manufacturing leader of the world.?

Well fuzzy, the reason that protectionism hasn't stopped our job losses, is because we have abandoned our protective policies. At first gradually, beginning with GATT, (General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs) back in 1947, with 8 "upgrades" up to 1994. Since then, we've had NAFTA,CAFTA,and just recently, Korean, Colombian and Panamanian free trade agreements. Actually, I'm afraid American jobs are moving more to McDonalds and Walmart.

If American manufacturers outsource their jobs, I don't think they are properly called, American manufacturers. You seem to be talking in slogans. "The American economy is about innovation" just doesn't say that much. China is also capable of "innovation". The idea that the US can afford to maintain a 50-70billion monthly trade deficit is insane. It is bankrupting the nation. It is the reason the stimulus had so little effect. I'm not sure what you mean by, "if they normally outsource...." Perhaps you could explain.

Hong Kong doesn't have a trade deficit. You make the statement, The trade deficit doesn't mean we're losing money. But that is incorrect. That is exactly what it means. Try reading Keynes. Your still displaying a sense of "American exceptional-ism" that is not born out in reality. The US has no monopoly on innovation. In a total free market, tech jobs go to the lowest bidder just like labor jobs. The statement, "you can't bring those jobs back" is simply false.

Where does apple make the i-phone? - oh yes in a factory where working conditions are so deplorable and hopeless the workers are killing them selves and they had to install "jumper nets" on the sides of the building. Who says Chinese workers aren't skilled - they're perfectly skilled - the problem is they live in a Communistic society that dictates their wages and standard of living. Communism and Corporatism are the same things (the wealth stays at the top where the power and control is.) I prefer a democracy (a nice combo between capitalism and socialism where there is such thing as upward mobility and freedom.